


begin again (oh wrap the ground around)

by AceQueenKing



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: F/M, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Non-Explicit Sex, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Reconciliation Sex, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, References to Aztec Religion & Lore, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 10:59:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19722316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: This is how it will be. Forever seeking and forever finding, forever being pulled apart to seek again. For all that they are gods, there are things they cannot change.But they will remember.





	begin again (oh wrap the ground around)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



“Come, husband,” she says, one finger curling forward. The world unfurls with her, sitting upon the marriage bed. 

He stares, wary. He only watches as she reaches for fruit at the side of the bed, slides a bit of the bitter fruit down her throat. It is an old thing, something from the creation of their universe, long ago. It does not mold here. Nothing molds here. Not even him – six times her age, surely, if he is a day, and yet looking as young and well-kept as only a God can be. She has made him wait before coming to him this time, and he has been patient, patient as only death can be.

But his patience has run out today.

She has pushed him a bit too far, teasing him with her hands upon his dirt, his ground. She rubbed her fingers through it like she once ran them through his hair, knowing it would summon him. It did not happen in this life but some part of him would remember, as some part of her does.

He came running.

The humans will gossip, she knows, that he took her without permission. They will never understand that her shouts upon being engulfed by that earth-thick man were those of joy. She was furious for so many years in this go-around, but seeing him - she missed him. She needed him. It is time. She needs him now, for he is the only way for her to be complete. 

“I don’t bite,” she offers, spreads herself on his bed like a sacrificial lamb. It’s an enormous bed, feather-down and heavy, plush in ways this life’s mother’s bed never was. There are comforts, she supposes, in marrying the god of all the riches under the ground. Again.

He offers her nothing, but she can see that he desires. She reaches for his hand and he flinches, but she sees how his eyes wander between her thighs, how his fists tighten with desire. This is his own prison, she knows. His own regrets. 

Fortunately, Persephone is used to answering his challenges. If not in this life, in the one before. And the one before that. 

“We are married,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you remember?”

He nods, he does; his eyes flicker to her eyes, then back to the hot heat he longs to bury himself in. He, too, seeks completeness. She spreads her legs wider, wanton and bold. “I want you, husband.”

“Do you?” His first words to her, badly accented in a foreign tongue; he’s not from Olympus, from something before, in this life. She has kept him waiting, stubbornly refusing to be born into the world to punish him for as long as she could be. “Do you really know what you want? You are so new, in this world.”

“I remember what want,” she says, licking her lips. “That will be enough.” Nothing is new in this world; she was here before. She remembers, in many ways – she remembers his knife at her throat, remembers her elbow in his face; remember how she offered him a share of her realm for her immortal hand, remembers him dragging her down. Remembers the first thousand times he grabbed her hand. Remembers knowing that she will know a thousand more with him.

Beliefs die, of course. Gods come back to life in different permutations. Unlike the souls that now go through the river they now call Lethe, their kind -- they _remember_. Well, she does. Him? She can only hope. One day, she fears, he will not remember, and it will break her if that day comes. Fortunately, that day is not today. “Do you remember? The before?” She asks, knowing already that he does but desiring the comfort of hearing it pass his lips. 

“The before?” He raises an eyebrow. “I remember every moment since time began. I remember when you were a cold queen who would not let me go, even when all others wept for me.”

“I remember,” she says, slinking toward him like the serpent that once spanned the world. “My father did not weep and thus you were forced to remain at my side, until the bitter end.”

“Ragnarok was not,” he says, with more tenderness than she would have thought him capable of in this body, “so bitter, as I recall.”

She presses a hand to his throat, and he does not move. His voice, clear and unafraid, falls forth from his lips. “I did not stand when you sent a man to my party. I came to you when you challenged me for it. I remember we fought. I remember I held a knife to your throat. You offered me marriage and I accepted.”

“Yes,” she says. She suckles on his ear and he jolts; this time, it is him who is the prey, her who is the hunter. “Then, I let you go.”

“Not for long.” The words are said in a half-moan; she has him now. She lazily traces a bit of iron around her fingers. His _timoi_ is her _timoi_ ; his power, her power, creates a crown every bit as fine as his. He presses his hands to the molten metal, adds star-jewels and night-clouds to it, a proper crown for a woman’s long-awaited homecoming.

“Never for long,” she whispers, and bites at his lip. He bleeds, golden ichor falling lightly upon that divine mouth.

“What do you remember?” He asks; he does now wipe the blood from his lip but dives to her neck, suckling the godly flesh there.

“I remember when we dwelled in a windowless house, with only spiders, owls, and bats for company. I remember following your bones down. I remember the blood in my mouth, and you, my compass, always pointing me north.”

“You were sacrificed,” he says; he presses her into the bed. “You were mortal, but I found you, I choose you. I said, _this one_.”

“You recognized me, and I was brought home,” she corrects. “Life always flows to death, you know.”

He chuckles into her ear, a soft hum of amusement that flows like blood down the temple steps. “I know, dear heart.” She sheds his clothing like a snake. “I know.”

“I remember you rejected me last time,” she says, the words a knife she uses to cut him as he moves into her skin, splitting her in a different and far more intimate fashion. “I was in the world of darkness, and you ran. You wounded me. I hid.”

“I regretted," he says. She holds him tighter. 

"I have returned,” he promises, breathing loving kisses down her nape; a tender move. “I destroyed the world because it was useless without you. I remade this world so I could come back to you.” He thrusts into her, the joyous union of two gods overwhelming, in both what is remembered and what is unspoken. For several minutes – or perhaps hours, or perhaps days, who can tell? -- they do not speak, the holy dance requiring all their attention.

“I will always come,” he whispers; his pulse is quick under her fingers as he comes inside her, death seeding new life. “Home.”

“And I will always come,” she says, tracing his fingers upon her neck with her own. “Home.”

They have lived thousands of lives, will live thousands more still. For a moment, Hades and Persephone enjoy these lives and these bodies. Vegetation blossoms in the world below, and death blossoms in the world above.

This is the coda and refrain to their glorious union; both forever and forever cut short. They are the lovers, always seeking and only briefly finding shelter in one another.

“I love you,” she says, and she does not mean him, this him, entirely, but all the hims that were, all the hims that will be.

He presses a kiss to her hand. “And I you,” he says. “Always.”

And this is, she knows how it will be. Forever seeking and forever finding, forever being pulled apart to seek again. For all that they are gods, there are things they cannot change. But they will remember. 

She kisses his fingers and closes her eyes, pressing the scent of his new flesh deep into her memories.

She will remember this.

She will remember.

**Author's Note:**

> The references to past lives are :
> 
> \- _I remember when you were a cold queen who would not let me go, even when all others begged_ \- Hel and Baldr (who were not, canonically, romantically inclined; I'm bending the rules a bit)
> 
> \- _I did not stand when you sent a man to my party. I came to you when you challenged me for it. I remember we fought. I remember I held a knife to your throat. You offered me marriage and I accepted_ \- Ereshkigal and Nergal
> 
> \- _I remember when we dwelled in a windowless house, with only spiders, owls, and bats for company. I remember following your bones down. I remember the blood in my mouth, and you, my compass, always pointing me north._ \- Mictlāntēcutli and Mictecacihuatl
> 
> \- _I was in the world of darkness, and you ran. You wounded me. I hid._ \- Izanagi and Izanami
> 
> Title is from Purity Ring's "Begin Again"


End file.
